AFTER QUALIFYING FRUSTRATION

Reigning British F3 Champions Hitech Racing was unable to reproduce the form that netted Austrian Walter Grubmüller fastest lap in free practice when official qualifying kicked off at Snetterton yesterday.

The Buckingham-based team that also steered Max Chilton to fourth quickest in the second session Friday had to settle for a best grid position of 11th for the second race which takes place today.

After a superb pre-event performance at the Norfolk track, the team had been confident of repeating the form that has seen BRDC Superstar Chilton on the front row for the last three races.  However in the two 30-minute sessions that were once again beset with red flags, the pair struggled to get back on terms with the leaders.

For race one they will line up 16th and 17th and for race two 11th and 12th.

Team Principal David Hayle was understandably disappointed with the result following the promising performance yesterday but confident of an improvement in the races tomorrow.

“We really had such a strong showing here yesterday with both Walter and Max but today for some reason, they’ve both been unable to get that form back.  We will have a take a close look at the data and see if we can find out where we’re losing out.

“For tomorrow we’ll have to hope we can keep out of trouble and make up some places.  Both drivers have shown a good race pace so providing we can do that we should be able to get some championship points in both races.”

Walter Grubmüller: “Qualifying really wasn’t good. In the first session I just didn’t have the pace.  I should have had a quicker lap but I just didn’t hook up all my best sectors together, which is a shame after being quickest in yesterday’s free practice.  The second qualifying was an improvement but I’m still not happy with it.

“But starting 12th it’s possible to get some points in the second race tomorrow at least. The conditions from yesterday were slightly different, it was quite a bit drier yesterday and we made a few changes between the sessions, but other than that, it’s pretty much the same so I’m not sure why we couldn’t reproduce the same form.”

Max Chilton: “I’m really struggling today, which was a real shock after being fourth quickest in free practice.  From there though, we’ve gone sharply downhill and I’m not really sure what’s gone wrong. I’m really struggling under braking pretty much everywhere, going in with understeer and coming out with oversteer.  For the races, I have nothing to lose so I may as well just go for it.”

Championship points after Round 8

1. Sergio Perez 88

2. Atte Mustonen 78

3. Jaime Alguersuari 71

4. Sebastian Hohenthal 58

5. Oliver Turvey 57

6. Marcus Ericsson 54

7. Max Chilton 50

11. Walter Grubmüller 21